Monday, January 28, 2013

Here's a document you will only find on the Parents' Coalition blog.It's a SEARCHABLE copy of the Superintendent's Recommended FY 2014 Operating Budget.Here is the document that Superintendent Joshua Starr made public:http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/budget/fy2014/budget-and-complement-full.pdfIt's the full budget, all 544 pages. But, let's say you want to know if the Superintendent's Recommended Operating Budget makes any mention of artificial turf or Pearson. Try and search the Superintendent Starr document above using your computer. No luck. You see, when Superintendent Starr had that copy of his recommended budget loaded to the MCPS website the vast majority of the pages were loaded as IMAGES and are not searchable. If you want to know what's in that document, you have to read it page by page.So, the Parents' Coalition has taken the document, scanned it with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program, converted it to a PDF, and loaded it on to Scribd for your convenience. If you want to find a specific word in the Superintendent's Recommended Operating Budget all you need to do is put the word in the Scribd"Search this document" box. Go ahead. Give it a try and see what you find! Use the document below only!Click the link and enter a word in the "Search this document" box.The Parents' Coalition blog is the ONLY place you will find a searchable copy of Superintendent Starr's FY 2014 Operating Budget.

Note: Some pages were garbled in the OCR conversion process, but the vast majority of the text is readable, and searchable. Why didn't Superintendent Starr make this document searchable in the first place? Why convert all the text pages to IMAGES and post IMAGES to the MCPS website?

4 comments:

"Currently, staff is negotiating a land swap with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission at William H. Farquhar Middle School onBatchelor's Forest Road in Olney."

Once again, I ask the following:

How can you swap what you don't own?

Maybe this budget process can be the juncture where the Council tells MCPS staff to start dealing in reality. I am still not aware of an "official request" being sent to Park and Planning even though Staff has been operating as if this has been a done deal for 18 months.

$2,000,000 already spent based on lies and misinformation.

Starr nor his staff have any respect for the taxpayers or their money. On second thought, let me correct that. Starr and his staff will spend your money, in any way they see fit, as long as it appeases the vocal minority and despite established protocol and policy.

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Principles

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

E-mail: contact AT parentscoalitionmc.com

What the Gazette said about the Parents' Coalition

It has taken a watchdog outside group, the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, to ferret out this waste. The coalition, driven by its sharp curiosity, frequently uses the Maryland Public Information Act to request public records and keep track of district decisions and spending.

We commend the coalition for its important work on this front. It is saving county residents money as inappropriate spending has been uncovered.

What The Washington Post said about the Parents' Coalition

The coalition might be the best-known parent advocacy group in the region. Its members represent several constituencies, including parents of special education and gifted education students and fiscal watchdogs. The group's defining victory came this school year when the school system scaled back the fees charged to families for course materials.

Coalition leaders have drawn attention to the misuse of funds collected from students for activities, the broadcast of a commercial radio service on school buses and, with their "Weast Watch" blog, the travel habits of Weast and his lieutenants.

MD Open Meetings Act Compliance Board staff says

Jerry Weast on the Parents' Coalition

"Along the way, you’ve had a challenging relationship with the Parents’ Coalition, the network of citizen activists who use the political process and other means to hold MCPS accountable.

The thing people accuse me of is listening, but not hearing. I hear, but I do not always agree. I am sorry that the world is faster than it was 10 years ago. I did not do that. [But] if we do not keep up, then our kids will be behind. We have to stop whining and get real."